Career Coaching
what they're saying:
“Sally has amazing interpersonal, organizational, and strategic skills. She went to great lengths to help me land a job, including: securing informational interviews for me, making sure I was well-prepared for those interviews, and promoting my skills to potential employers. I can't recommend her highly enough.”
March 3, 2009
Sara Kennedy
Marketing and Communications Staff member
FAQs About Coaching
- Career coach or mentor, what's the difference?
- At what point in my academic career is the best time to hire a career coach?
- Why is career coaching particularly important for women in the academy?
- Are career coaching services available for people who are not academics?
- How are career coaching services made convenient for me?
- Preparing for campus interviews
- Becoming a junior faculty member
- Joining a new institution
- Preparing for your third year review
- Achieving tenure
- Assuming an academic administrative position
- Transitioning into a new academic leadership role
- Get the best possible starting conditions in terms of salary, research equipment and support, a reasonable teaching load and protection from excessive service expectations
- Understand and successfully navigate through the unspoken and unwritten rules of academe
- Balance the competing time demands of teaching, research, and other professional and personal responsibilities
- Develop successful and influential relationships with peers, mentors and people in powerful positions (chairs, deans, provosts and presidents to name a few)
- Create a six year plan and achieve tenure
- Assume leadership roles and actively participate in institutional decision making
- Developing solid cover letters resulting in being invited for interviews
- Redesigning their resumes to strategically market their skills (particularly if they are changing industries)
- Preparing for successful interviewing and job offer negotiations
Career coach or mentor, what's the difference?
By all means, invest time in developing relationships with highly respected faculty in your field. Career coaching is not intended to replace mentoring. However, keep in mind only about a quarter of U.S. universities have formal mentoring programs. Instead, many departments rely on informal mentoring arrangements where in senior faculty are encouraged to reach out to new faculty and visa a versa. In my experience, this rarely works as well as intended. Unfortunately, women and minorities are particularly vulnerable to falling by the way side under such arrangements.
At all levels within the Academy, identifying a good mentor also takes time and access to the right people as well as some skill on your part and willingness on their part. You can't afford to flounder until these pieces are all put into place. Career coaching can provide you with the confidential support you need, when you need it.
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At what point in my academic career is the best time to hire a career coach?
Given that tenure, once an almost routine rite of passage, has become increasingly difficult to achieve at the foremost colleges and universities, the sooner you begin strategically mapping out your path to success, the better.Consider this: what you negotiate for and accept in an offer significantly impacts your ability to be successful within a given institution. For this reason, people often begin working with me long before they have an offer in hand.
Many people elect to work together regularly throughout their career while others choose to reengage during those pivotal periods when extra support is needed such as:
The choice is yours. Career coaching can be a short term process or it can be an ongoing, supportive professional relationship to help you achieve your professional goals within the Academy.
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Why is career coaching particularly important for women in the academy?
Research indicates that for women and minorities, getting into the academy is not the same as succeeding in the academy because once inside the ivory tower status is low as evidenced by salary, rank and leadership roles in Academe http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/03 faculty-diversity.html
Given this reality it is imperative that women and minorities in the Academy invest in themselves and in their professional development. Career coaching is a wise investment as it will provide you with the strategies and skills necessary to:
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Are career coaching services available for people who are not academics?
Yes! I have experience providing career guidance and coaching services for administrators in higher education as well as individual's with careers ranging from law to the auto industry. My area of expertise is in working with people who are in the midst of career transitions and need help:
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How are career coaching services made convenient for me?
Individual career coaching can be provided in person at my office in downtown Ann Arbor when desired, your office if preferred or by telephone and email correspondence. We can schedule our sessions to accommodate your teaching, research and travel needs. In addition to daytime availability I offer early morning as well as evening appointments. Webinars covering important topics and providing specific strategies are also available. I strive to make the process as convenient as possible for you.
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New Programs
Becoming an Influential Administrator
The Becoming an Influential Administrator program is designed for female college and university leaders who want to mobilize others to get extraordinary things done. It’s about the practices leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, challenges into change initiatives. This 4 week online program and career coaching package is about leadership that fosters a culture in which people work together against the inherent politics and competing demands in Higher Education.
Program Fee: $199.00
Achieving Work/Life Balance in the Academy
"Achieving Work/Life Balance in the Academy" coaching program consists of access to an online e-learning module exploring five strategies for achieving balance in the Academy along with 3 private phone-based coaching sessions designed to help you achieve the right balance of focus, energy, and time between your work as an academic and the other important areas of your life.
Program Fee: $199.00